The Canberra Times' bridge columnist Len Dixon prepares to turn 100

The card game suited the analytical mind of the kid from the East End of London who would end up migrating to Australia and becoming one of the very early computer programmers for the Commonwealth government.

"We were a card-playing family, but the card games we played at home were mainly continental. I think we even used to play cards in the air raid shelters in London before I joined the war," he said.

The long-time bridge columnist for The Canberra Times is preparing to turn 100, on December 27. He already has had his Jewish 100^th, which, based on a lunisolar calendar, fell on November 30, his family celebrating at the National Jewish Centre in Forrest.

Mr Dixon has a particular take on turning 100.

"I feel as if I'm a batsman in the 90s and I don't want to get out until I make the century," he said.

"But, other than that, it's not very exciting. I'm very relaxed about the fact I'm going to die."

Not yet, though.

There is much to be admired about the sharp-as-a-tack 99-year-old still writing bridge columns every week for The Canberra Times, as he has done since 1968. Give or take a few and taking into account the occasional holiday, Mr Dixon estimates he's written about 2700 columns for the newspaper.

His family is preparing a 100^th birthday celebration at the Canberra Bridge Club in Deakin on December 19. Daughter Jo has organised for the cake to be decorated with an edible image of his very first column in The Canberra Times from 53 years ago.

"I'm going to eat my words," he said, droll as ever, but with a twinkle in his eye.

Jo Dixon said, apart from his family, the three pillars of her father's life have been the Jewish community, the bridge community and The Canberra Times.

His life in the national capital is the tale of a migrant who contributed mightily to his adopted home.

Mr Dixon's father was a tailor's presser, an Eastern European Jew who came to England as an orphan with his older sister, Mr Dixon's paternal grandparents killed in a pogrom, a violent attack against Jews in the Russian Empire.

Mr Dixon, who had a younger brother, knew little about the early life of his father, who died when he was 14. But he does remember his father teaching him arithmetic, so that when he went off to school he was doing long multiplication while his peers were drawing pictures. Years later, Mr Dixon would be invited to join Mensa, in its very early days, and was found to have an IQ "one more than Einstein" - 161.

Mr Dixon's widowed mother made sure he matriculated and a young Len became a computer programmer with the London County Council in the 1950s, at a time when no one had even heard of such a job.

Not long later, Mr Dixon was lured to Australia, to help it come to terms with the nascent computer age.

"I was recruited by the Department of Defence in 1962 at which time I was the chief computer programmer of the London County Council," he said.

"There was virtually no one in IT in Australia in those days. They had to go and look for people abroad and they couldn't go to many places because, to become a Commonwealth public servant in those days, you had to be a British subject and, what with other problems in Australian history, you had to have a white skin. So they were really confined to two places, Canada and Great Britain."

Mr Dixon moved to Canberra with his wife Ruth and their three daughters, Sara, Jo and Felicity, to become second-in-command in computing for the Department of Air. They stayed first at the Rex Hotel and then moved into the Northbourne Flats, "which in those days were posh", Jo remembers.

Mr Dixon says it was a culture shock moving from swinging London to sleepy Canberra, almost 60 years ago.

"I was reasonably happy. My late wife, who persuaded me to come - but for her I wouldn't have been looking for another job - she persuaded me to apply, she persuaded me to accept the offer I got and as soon as she arrived here, she wished she hadn't come, because it was moving from a city to a village," he said.

"But she eventually had a trip back about five years after we came and decided she preferred Canberra after all."

The family bought a house in Duffy Street in Ainslie and have remained in the inner-north suburb ever since. Mr Dixon still lives in his own house, in the same street as daughter Jo. "I prefer to live on my own but we've got this arrangement where I spend most of my day here and go home at night," he said.

Mr Dixon was a national master when he was recruited in 1968 to write a bridge column by then editor of The Canberra Times, John Allan.

He still plays bridge and is, invariably, the oldest person at the table. It's a game that has become so much part of his life. Mr Dixon and his wife Ruth, who died in 1984, were even recruited to teach and direct bridge on Fairstar cruises, getting free travel to share their love of the game.

As he approached his 100^th, Mr Dixon was happy to have his family near. Granddaughters Ruby and Lily have arrived from London. His only grandson, Sam, is hoping to come from the UK to Canberra early next year, with Mr Dixon's first great-grandchild. His other granddaughters, Gracie and Stella live in Adelaide, with mum Felicity. The Dixons' oldest daughter Sara, died in 1975.

Turning 100 often means reflecting on how one got to such a distinguished age. Playing bridge and doing the daily cryptic crosswords have kept his mind sharp but Mr Dixon was not one for existential introspection.

"I don't know," he answers, when asked what is the secret to long life.

"The important thing is not to worry about it."

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